6. MCE As CD-Player, Jukebox, And Radio

For everything and anything having to do with digital music, Windows Media Player 10 is outstanding. It's pretty much invisible inside MCE, except where it's listed under the "My Music" folder. Here, you can use comprehensive search functions for music based on title, artist or type. CDs or albums can be denoted with their titles and/or cover art, as long as you allow for automatic download of such data. And you can use your own or others' playlists in Windows Media Player, as well.

The My Music display lets you list albums and CDs by genre, with cover art and title text to help you pick your tracks.

Music on CD may be played back or copied to a hard drive. In contrast to earlier versions of MCE, 2005 lets you use various WMA formats and MP3 (even high bitrate encodings) to store your music, including:

On demand, MCE also loads music metadata, such as cover art, track names, artist information and so forth. If you select the "Buy Music" function, this takes you to an MCE compatible Website, where you can purchase rights to download copyrighted music, or subscribe to music libraries for a modest monthly charge.

Using MCE, you can even burn a music CD from your living room sofa.

When it comes to copying CDs, MCE 2005 insists that users access this function through "My Music," where you can choose the titles you want to include, then burn an Audio CD in the format of your choice.

Analog FM radio playback is also part of MCE's back of tricks, provided your TV tuner card includes an FM receiver. But access to FM stations and setting up pre-selections is so awkward you might just quit after picking your favorite station. The only interesting function here is a sort of audio timeshift that the pause button on the remote allows. And recording from the radio isn't supported, unlike so many network players that let you do so with ease.